Sunday, January 27, 2013

Source: I received this ebook review copy free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program.

Book Description from Booksneeze:
After watching her father jump from one marriage to the next, Natalia has completely written off love. And when her father divorces his third wife--the only one who has been a mother to her--Natalia is ready to write him off too. Natalia leaves her home in Spain and relocates with her stepmother to sun-soaked Florida.

But she didn’t realize just how far a new school, a new culture, and a new lifestyle would push her out of her comfort zone. One of her biggest surprises comes from Brian, a pastor’s son with an adorable smile who loves God with a sincerity that astounds Natalia. She doesn’t want to fall for him, but she can’t seem to avoid him long enough to get him out of her mind.

My Review:Right Where I Belong is a young adult Christian romance that is loosely based on Ruth. Several characters from this author's previous two novels were in this one, but you don't need to read those novels to understand this one. This novel did "spoil" how her previous novels ended, though, so you might wish to read them in order.

The first third of this book was a fairly light story about Natalia trying to get used to all of the differences between her culture and American culture. While interesting, the last two-thirds of the book drew me into the story more as Natalia dealt with her step-mother's break-down, tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life, and dealt with her issues about trusting men to not all treat women like her dad did.

The characters were engaging and interesting, especially in the second half as they became more developed. The romance was believable, and Natalia and Brian seemed well-suited to each other. There was a fair amount of discussion about Christian topics since Natalia wanted to learn more about her faith. They talked about how to best convince people that they need Christ, why God lets us go through hard times, is honoring God or honoring your parents more important when it comes to choosing your job, and so on.

I wasn't completely comfortable with the "God or parents" message since most teens don't have an accurate idea of God's "calling" for their life and could use this to justify ignoring their parent's guidance. How Natalia actually applied the advice was fine, though. There was no sex or bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable novel.

If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

It's time to announce the winner of the Dreaming of Books Giveaway Hop. Including Twitter entries, we had 34 entries. Using a random number generator and numbering the entrants in the order I received them, the winner is:

Book Description, My Take:
The marriage of convenience between Keara McBride and Elam Jensen becomes uncomfortable when they realize that they actually love each other. Elam's dead wife had been Keara's best friend, and both Keara and Elam feel like they're betraying her memory. To make the situation even more difficult, the dead wife's sister shows up on their doorstep with a bullet wound on their wedding night. Someone is trying to kill her, and Keara and Elam must keep her hidden! But the only way to really keep her safe is to discover who is after her and why he wants her dead.

My Review:The Wedding Kiss is a Christian historical romantic suspense set in 1901 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It was fun to read a novel set so close to where I live, but I wonder how much the authors actually know about raising and training horses. Elam was supposed to have a successful, full-fledged horse farm yet apparently only had a few horses (which were constantly kept in a barn or nearby paddock and were fed a lot of oats...not really the normal setup for the time period).

The focus was more on the suspense than the romance, so the romance was mainly coming to peace with loving each other while a whirlwind of other events were happening. I liked that the authors used actual historical events of that time to set up and push forward several events in the book. The suspense was created through relationship tensions between several characters and from physical danger.

The Christian element was woven naturally into the characters' behavior and conversations. The characters did briefly talk about God and His being in control. There was no sex. There was a very minor amount of "he cussed" style of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this fairly light, enjoyable novel.

If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Reporter Moira Harrisons is lost. In the dark. In a thunderstorm. When a lone figure suddenly appears in the beam of her headlights, Moira slams on her brakes--but it's too late. She feels the solid thump against the side of her car before crashing into a tree on the far side of the road.

A man opens her door, tells her he saw everything, and promises to call 911. Then everything fades to black. When she comes to, she is alone. No man. No 911. No injured person. But she can't forget the look of terror she saw on that face in the instant before her headlights swung away. And she can't get anyone to believe her story--except a handsome ex-homicide detective turned private eye, who agrees to take on the case.

Inheriting her estranged father's property isn't the reason Robyn Warner wanted to come back to Pine Hollow. She thought she'd make amends with her father—but his sudden death made that impossible. And when she learns the identity of the handyman fixing the run-down cabins, Robyn is ready to flee Pine Hollow again. Caleb Sloane, the cop partly responsible for her father's death, just wants to uphold his promise and then return to the force. But he can't seem to walk away. After all, he understands about guilt and regret. And he'll do everything he can to help Robyn find healing, happiness and—just maybe—a lifetime of love.

This contest is for USA & Canada residents only.

To enter the giveaway:

1) you can twitter me saying "Hi @genrereviewer. Enter me in the giveaway for [give the book name and author's name]."

OR

2) You can leave a comment to this post asking to be entered and naming which book you'd like to win. (I have comment moderation on to prevent spam comments, so don't worry if your entry comment doesn't appear immediately. It will soon.) Please also leave some way for me to contact you--or follow this blog so you can see the winner announcement. I'd be fun if you also included why you're interested in reading this novel.

This giveaway ends on January 24, 2013 at midnight. The winner will be randomly selected. I'll announce the winner on January 25, 2013 on this blog.

If you entered using twitter, I'll send you a @ or DM telling you of your win and asking where to send the book. If you entered using the blog comments, you'll need to leave your e-mail address or check back to see if you won so you can e-mail me your mailing address. If the winner hasn't responded with a mailing address within four days, I reserve the right to pick a new winner.

Source: Special thanks to Georgiana Daniels for sending me a review copy. This post is part of the FIRST Wild Card Tour.

Book Description:
Inheriting her estranged father's property isn't the reason Robyn Warner wanted to come back to Pine Hollow. She thought she'd make amends with her father—but his sudden death made that impossible. And when she learns the identity of the handyman fixing the run-down cabins, Robyn is ready to flee Pine Hollow again. Caleb Sloane, the cop responsible for her father's accident, just wants to uphold his promise and then return to the force. But he can't seem to walk away. After all, he understands about guilt and regret. And he'll do everything he can to help Robyn find healing, happiness and—just maybe—a lifetime of love.

My Review:A Daughter's Redemption is a Christian romance novel. To clarify the book description, Caleb did not directly kill Robyn's father. He was a cop trying to pull over a young man that had driven through a red light and was thought to be drunk. Instead of stopping, the young man sped off and hit Robyn's father. Since the department had a "no-pursuit" policy, some people in town also blamed Caleb for the accident.

The characters were engaging and reacted to events in realistic ways. I liked how Robyn tried to live out her Christian faith in her behavior, like forgiving wrongs done to her even though it wasn't always easy to do so. Her guilt over not fixing things with her dad when she still could was making her angry at those who took that chance away from her. Feelings of guilt in Robyn and Caleb and the anger that Robyn's half-siblings felt over her getting the resort created relationship tensions. Not to mention that Caleb might lose his job. I had a hard time putting the book down because I wasn't sure how all of these problems were going to play out.

My only confusion was why a relatively simple question--did Caleb violate department policy or not and was it justified if he did--was allowed to turn into a witch hunt where people known to hold a grudge against Caleb were a part of making this decision. Turning the question into a popularity contest did add tension to the story, but it decreased some of the sense of realism for me.

The Christian element was woven naturally into the story and was mainly Robyn's and Caleb's conviction that God must have a plan even though the circumstances seemed so out of their control. There was no sex or bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable novel.

If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

About the Author:
Georgiana Daniels resides in the beautiful mountains of Arizona with her super-generous husband and three talented daughters. She graduated from Northern Arizona University with a bachelor's degree in public relations, and now has the privilege of homeschooling by day and wrestling with the keyboard by night. She enjoys sharing God's love through fiction, and is exceedingly thankful for her own happily ever after.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

It's time to announce the winner of the Happy New Year 2013 Giveaway Hop. Including Twitter entries, we had 29 entries. Using a random number generator and numbering the entrants in the order I received them, the winner is:

Emilywho won "The Captain's Bride" by Lisa Tawn Bergren

Congratulations! I'll be contacting you for your address.

For those who didn't win, you can always buy a copy of these books from your favorite bookstore or see if they have them at your local library.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Book Description from Back Cover:
Reporter Moira Harrisons is lost. In the dark. In a thunderstorm. When a lone figure suddenly appears in the beam of her headlights, Moira slams on her brakes--but it's too late. She feels the solid thump against the side of her car before crashing into a tree on the far side of the road.

A man opens her door, tells her he saw everything, and promises to call 911. Then everything fades to black. When she comes to, she is alone. No man. No 911. No injured person. But she can't forget the look of terror she saw on that face in the instant before her headlights swung away. And she can't get anyone to believe her story--except a handsome ex-homicide detective turned private eye, who agrees to take on the case.

My Review:Vanished is a Christian romantic suspense novel. It's the first book in a new series, but it's also a stand-alone novel. I found the story refreshing. Lately, it seems like most books that I read have a setup very similar to other books I've read before, but this was new to me: an injured woman vanishes and an investigative reporter and a private investigator appear to have nothing to go on.

I liked the main characters, especially how they cared about justice even when they, personally, didn't know the victim and wouldn't gain anything from pursuing the case, and even when it was a long chance that they'd be able to solve the case. The characters acted realistically, and we got to know them well.

The suspense was created by uncertainty about finding enough clues to uncover (and prove) whodunit and from physical danger. The romance came across as realistic to me and had some funny moments--how many novels have sorting through trash for a date! Loved it.

The main characters were all Christians, and we saw this more through their actions--like how they treated people--than through their talking about God. The bad guy was also a Christian, but he felt like he had "to help God out" in an extreme way. He was a very warped character, though there was a good reason for why he was that way.

There was no sex. There was a very minor amount of "he cursed" style of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable and intriguing novel.

If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

About Me

My name is Debbie. I'm a single female in my thirties. I have three book review blogs: one for well-written, clean fiction; one for nonfiction (memoirs, history, military, religion, and social issues); and a book club for Christian nonfiction.

My other review blogs

Why this blog?

I like to read, but it can be hard to find clean mainstream fiction anymore. Hopefully this blog will help others who have similar reading tastes to find clean novels to read.

In my reviews, I try to point out elements that I think readers may wish to know which might influence their decision to read a book. I'm not trying to convince people not to read a book as I'm fully aware that some things which bother me won't bother others at all. So if a book sounds fun to you, certainly give it a try!

Disclosure StatementI'm not paid to review books. I do receive free review copies from publishers, authors, etc., but I also review books I've bought or checked out of the library. I review all books by the same standard, no matter the source. My readers are assuming I am, and the publishers expect it.